March 2001 - Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

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to crush the Jewish state – particularly if Sharon dared to launch a full-scale crackdown on the uprising. This theory has strengths and weaknesses. It is certainly true that a militant Sharon could provoke a war if he promotes the construction of new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and bulldozes Arab homes to make way for the settlers – policies he advocated in the 1980s. If a military riposte to the intifada escalated the bloodshed, moreover, events could spiral out of control. But Sharon, a seasoned military officer, recognizes the limits of military power. More likely, he will simply retaliate against specific attacks on Israelis and insist that the violence cease before resuming negotiations. It seems doubtful that he would use the military instrument indiscriminately. Once the bargaining resumes, he will clearly have “red lines” beyond which he will not retreat, and he will use force as a backdrop to implicitly buttress his negotiating positions. The perception that Barak lacked hard-and-fast principles was the key to his downfall in the peace process and at the ballot box. His successor is betting that his willingness to use force to uphold his principles will help him in any new negotiations. Finally, it is unlikely that the Arab states will have the political will to join in such a coalition, and they definitely do not have the military might to do significant damage to Israel absent the use of weapons of mass destruction. In any event, war is a remote possibility. Yasser Arafat’s supposed role in engineering an Arab coalition is implausible. Not superhuman cunning but political weakness has been the driving force behind Arafat’s actions. Only a minority of Palestinians support his rule. Thus he has felt powerless to act firmly to halt violence by Palestinian youth. A crackdown might allow his many critics to paint him as a puppet of Israel – with results fatal to his leadership. Arafat’s effort to suppress Arab turnout at the election was more likely an act of spite towards Ehud Barak, whom he came to despise. If so, the PA chief blundered badly, as official Palestinian statements since the election indicate. Arafat spokesmen insist, rather plaintively, that the peace process pick up where the parties left off at Camp David. Fat chance. Sharon’s public statements distancing himself from the Oslo accords, not to mention his renowned hardheadedness, will bind him to a harder line. A second, and more tantalizing, possibility is that the advent of a hardline prime minister could actually free Arafat from the corner into which he has painted himself. The PA chairman has repeatedly promised his constituents that he would deliver their own state with its capital in East Jerusalem. With the palpably weak Barak in charge, Arafat could scarcely back away from this maximalist position – especially in view of his precarious standing with the Israel March 2001 Palestinian citizenry. Palestinians would blame him, for instance, for failing to wrest 100 percent of the West Bank from the feckless Israeli prime minister. However, Ariel Sharon has plentiful credibility as a hard-nosed statesman, and he has declared the Oslo process over – “period.” Sharon thus may be able to craft a take-it-or-leaveit interim deal from which Israel will not back away and which the PA has no choice but to accept. This would actually ease Arafat’s predicament, since he could present a compromise settlement as the best that could be wrung from a right-winger such as Sharon. The new prime minister will not give way on issues such as the right of return for refugees who fled the Jewish state in 1948 – sanctifying such a right would amount to slow-motion demographic suicide for Israel – and he will not yield on sovereignty over Jerusalem. But if he ratifies the territorial provisions that have already been implemented and takes other modest steps, he might be able to fashion a peace deal or, more likely, another interim deal that gives each side something and eases the violence. What would such a deal look like The Palestinians’ fondest hope, that the negotiations will resume where the Camp David summit left off, will certainly be dashed. The foul mood of the Israeli public rules out sweeping concessions. Still, a more limited arrangement could suit the minimal requirements of each side and thus form the basis of a grudging compromise. Should Arafat agree to rein in paramilitary groups and clamp down on the almost daily episodes of violence – and provide tangible evidence of his good faith – Ariel Sharon might be willing to turn over blocs of the West Bank that would begin to make the current archipelago of PA enclaves – clearly an unsustainable arrangement – look more like a state with contiguous territory. Formal recognition of Palestinian statehood by Tel Aviv would also bolster the chances of a settlement. The prime minister might also end government policies encouraging the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This settlement policy has done little, in any case, other than bring down widespread condemnation on Israel in foreign capitals and the United Nations. In the end, this scenario will turn on whether Sharon and Arafat can sustain their popularity with their constituents – giving them the prestige to sell a compromise deal at home. Finally, the two sides could continue to muddle through as they have since the intifada began last fall. In this view, Sharon would prove a transitional figure unable to mold a consensus on the peace process. This could happen in a variety of ways. He could fail to form a national-unity government or pass a budget by the March deadlines. ith only a narrow right-wing majority in the Knesset, the leg- page 10
islature would be virtually ungovernable for a Likud prime minister – forcing Sharon to call new elections in hopes that the tide of public sentiment that swept him to power would bring a like-minded Knesset into being. Benjamin Netanyahu would be unlikely to sit out a new election that might restore Likud to power – and he is more popular than Sharon, having polled even more strongly against Barak than did the eventual victor. In any of these cases, the PA would have no incentive to bargain. Arafat would simply stall until the elections clarified matters. From the Palestinian standpoint, even a Netanyahu restoration would be preferable to a Sharon regime. The second and third scenarios are the most likely outcomes for the near term. It is impossible to predict which course Israeli politics will take. All-out war can be discounted. The Muslim world would be reluctant to confront the high-tech Israeli armed forces, particularly when these forces would undoubtedly be backed by the United States. Sharon has apparently surmounted the hurdle of forming a unity government – improving his chances of passing a budget. However, the unruly Knesset could hamstring his policies, just as it did those of Barak. Still, although it would require a remarkable feat of statesmanship, the possibility that Sharon, now that he has formed a stable ruling coalition, will broker a modest deal should not be ruled out. Toughminded diplomats sometimes succeed where their more accommodating colleagues fall short. Firmness is the key to successful negotiations – and Ariel Sharon boasts that virtue in abundance. Reducing the Stakes for America Skeptical of the prospects for a peace settlement, the newly installed Bush administration has notso-subtly signaled its desire to downplay the peace process – to place the negotiations within the overall context of Middle East policy, as the State Department somewhat delicately puts it. Implicit in U.S. statements is that Iraq will take center stage, with American involvement in the Arab-Israeli dust-up viewed more as a tool to shore up Arab support in the Gulf than as an end in itself. While he undoubtedly hopes to take credit for a settlement, should one emerge, George W. Bush is unwilling to bet the success of his foreign policy on the violence-racked peace process. Indeed, he downgraded supervision of the U.S. role in the negotiations from the presidential to the assistant secretarial level. The difference is particularly marked compared with the Clinton administration, which made a settlement one of its chief foreign-policy aims. This philosophical turnaround fueled suspicions in the Palestinian community during a late February trip to the region by Secretary of State Colin Israel March 2001 Powell. In a face-to-face meeting in Ramallah, Powell sought to pacify Yasser Arafat by calling for an end to the economic hardships – spawned by the Israeli blockade – that bedevil ordinary Palestinians. Sealing off the occupied territories, he warned, would produce additional violence by needlessly impoverished Palestinian citizens. Prime Minister-elect Sharon, however, has showed no signs of bending to U.S. pressure. He has maintained, reasonably enough, that there is no reason for Israelis to employ people who are essentially at war with them. The Bush administration is in an awkward position. The president and secretary of state are understandably reluctant to tie their fortunes to what might be a sinking ship – the peace process. But the administration also wants to reinvigorate U.S. policy against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Whatever the failings of the Clinton administration’s Middle East policy, Bill Clinton and Madeleine profited handsomely – measured in goodwill among the Gulf Arab states – from their aggressive sponsorship of a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. In turn, the United States was able to sustain the U.N. sanctions on Iraq for eight years and generally keep Iraq contained. In all likelihood the new administration will reach the same conclusions as its predecessor and will press ahead with a prominent role in the peace process – though without the manic fervor that characterized the last days of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The dividends from high-profile engagement in the Arab-Israeli peace process are simply too lucrative to pass up. Even more importantly for Washington’s broader Middle East strategy, no administration can be successful in the region without being seen as being actively involved in attempting to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. Conclusions Predicting the course of Arab-Israeli relations is an even more hazardous undertaking than usual. The safest bets are that Ariel Sharon will successfully negotiate all the obstacles to his forming a stable government; that he will pursue negotiations with Yasser Arafat on his terms; and that the Muslim states will refrain from joining in a war against Israel. While the United States will reduce its profile in the negotiations somewhat, it will continue to prod the two sides towards a settlement. Elements of the economic sanctions on Iraq are probably doomed, come what may in Israel. But the prestige it reaps from engagement in the peace process will help Washington to broker a stiffer arms embargo on Saddam Hussein’s regime – keeping the Iraqi dictator in the box as much as political reality permits. page 11
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Page 8 and 9: Middle East since the outbreak of v
Page 10 and 11: As this report went to print, Ariel
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Page 18 and 19: Internal Developments The first two
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Page 26 and 27: The UAE’s attention remains focus
Page 28: Medium Range Anti-Aircraft Missile

March 2001 - Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

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